Bangkok Backpack Man On CCTV 'Is The Bomber'
Sky News â 1 hour 11 minutes ago, 18 August, 2015, Source
Police in Thailand believe a man seen leaving a backpack near a Bangkok shrine is the bomber responsible for killing 22 people in the country's "worst ever" attack.
The man, dressed like a tourist in a yellow T-shirt, shorts and sandals, is shown taking off his backpack and leaving it underneath a bench at a busy junction in CCTV footage.
Royal Thai Police spokesman Lt Gen Prawuth Thawornsiri said: "The yellow shirt guy is not just the suspect.
"He is the bomber."
Lt Gen Prawut earlier said the man "is a suspect" and had released several photos of him, with and without the backpack, on social media.
Thai PM Prayut Chan-ocha said the suspect was thought to belong to an "anti-government group based in Thailand's northeast" - though he did not explain why he thought that was the case.
The rural Isaan region is a stronghold for the Red Shirt movement that backed Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother Thaksin - the siblings deposed by military coups in 2014 and 2006.
On social media, opposition activists claimed the junta was rushing to blame its political opponents as a justification for maintaining military rule and further delaying a promised return to democracy.
Among the dead was Vivian Chan, 19, a British law student who was resident in Hong Kong.
Five of the victims have been identified as Thai and four as Chinese - two of them from Hong Kong.
Two Malaysians, one Singaporean and one Indonesian also died.
The blast, which left more than 100 injured, happened on Monday evening local time in the central Chidlom district - a shopping hub popular among tourists.
CCTV footage showed a huge orange fireball as the bomb exploded and people fleeing down the street.
National police chief Somyot Poompanmuang said that the explosion was caused by a pipe bomb that contained 3kg of high explosive.
Thai authorities are fighting an ongoing separatist insurgency in the south of the country, but Royal Thai Army chief and deputy defence minister General Udomdej Sitabutr said the carnage was not consistent with attacks there.
The government called the bomb a bid to destroy the economy.
More than 6,500 people have been killed in the southern insurgency since 2004.
Rebels in the Malay-Muslim part of Thailand have been fighting for independence from the mostly Buddhist country.
Some of the groups involved in the fighting are rumoured to share an ideology with jihadists in other parts of the world like Afghanistan and Syria.
Police spent Tuesday morning combing through the scene to search for evidence as to who was responsible. Mr Poompanmuang said they were keeping an open mind.
As police hunted the attackers Bangkok had a new bomb scare as a man threw a small explosive device from a bridge on the city's Chao Phraya river.
However, it landed in a canal and no-one was hurt.
Authorities say it could be connected to Monday's attack
The Hindu/Buddhist Erawan shrine, at the Ratchaprasong interchange, is a major attraction for visitors, especially from east Asia, including China.
It is on a busy corner near top hotels, a transport system, shopping centres, offices and a hospital.
The area was also one of the main centres of 2010 anti-government "Red Shirt" protests that led to the deaths of about 90 civilians and soldiers, and further demonstrations in 2014.
